Goals for Air Safety in Indonesia

Improving aviation safety should be a priority in a country with a record of air disasters, but it will require time, money and coordination—all in short supply. Here’s Transportation Minister Ignasius Jonan on the job ahead.

The first focus, Mr. Jonan said, will be improving runways, navigation systems, operational devices, aprons, taxiways and terminals at 50 or more of the 181 airports controlled by the ministry. Fencing and x-ray systems also need upgrading, he added, as do security checks. Mr. Jonan said he is aware of issues revealed in a Wall Street Journal examination that found several airports it visited lack important navigation and weather-safety equipment.

Mr. Jonan, a former banker, took on airline finances as part of efforts to improve safety following a deadly AirAsia crash in December. To prevent scrimping on safety, the ministry tried forcing low-cost carriers to raise prices, a much-criticized policy, since abandoned. But Mr. Jonan said he’s standing by a rule forbidding airlines from having loans that exceed their assets. The 12 carriers in violation must improve their balance sheets by the middle of October, or stop operating.

A relative of a passenger on AirAsia flight QZ8501 praying at Surabaya airport after the flight went missing in December

To accommodate a jump in passenger traffic, Indonesia is set to add 15 airports by 2019, and expand others. But “we will not jeopardize the safety standards,” Mr. Jonan said. “If we tell them [the government] that we are not finished, we are not finished.” Improvements are behind schedule, he said, largely because those making the upgrades are learning as they go. “If we want to have an airport let’s make sure the airport is built and operated properly, or we just don’t need an airport,” he said.

The remains of a passenger recovered from the site of August

The pace of the ministry’s air-navigation unit, though, has been too slow, said Mr. Jonan, threatening to change management if it doesn’t pick up. He wants an upgrade “as soon as we can” from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration—which after a series of deadly accidents in 2007 downgraded Indonesia to Category 2, meaning its airlines can’t expand or add service to the U.S. The European Union admits only four of Indonesia’s dozens of airlines.

The FAA Building in Washington

Indonesia has made some improvements in recent years, say aviation experts. To continue on that path the transportation ministry will have to work closer with, among others, the finance ministry and state-owned Ankasa Pura I and II, which manage 26 of the country’s airports. Mr. Jonan isn’t worried, he said, as long as others in the cabinet are willing to compromise “at least two-thirds of their ideas. I think that’s good enough.”

Transportation Minister Ignasius Jonan and Director General for Air Transportation Suprasetyo